There was a little crash upon the floor, and the sound of a half-uttered exclamation. Adelaide Fortress had dropped a small china ornament with which she had been playing. She did not even glance towards the pieces at her feet. She was bending slightly towards me, her lips half parted, her cheeks pale. Her appearance fascinated me; I forgot Mr. Deville altogether until the sound of his clear, deep voice broke the silence.
“I had several letters in my pocket, Miss Ffolliot,” he said, slowly. “I am not sure that I remember which one it was that you were good enough to restore to me. In any case, how are you interested in the writer of any of them? What has it to do with your present trouble—whatever that may be?”
“I will tell you,” I answered, readily. “On Tuesday morning my father received a letter, and whatever its contents were, they summoned him to London. He was to have returned yesterday. He did not come, and he sent no message. All to-day we have had no word from him. The last train from London to-night is in, and he has not come. We do not know where he is, or what has become of him. There are the services to-morrow, and no one to take them. He must be ill, or in trouble of some sort, or he would have returned, that is certain. It has made us terribly anxious.”
“I am very sorry to hear this, Miss Ffolliot,” he said. “If I could help you I would be glad, but I am afraid I do not quite see—exactly—”
I raised my eyes to his and looked him in the face. The words seemed to die away upon his lips. He was not actor enough for his part.
“I will tell you why I came to you for help, Mr. Deville,” I exclaimed. “The handwriting upon the letter which you dropped was the same handwriting which summoned my father to London.”
Then, for the first time, some glimmering of the mystery in which these persons and my father were alike concerned dawned upon me. The man and the women looked at one another; Bruce Deville walked over to the window without answering or addressing me. I had, indeed, asked no direct question. Yet they knew what I wanted. It was the whole truth which I desired.
I stamped my foot upon the floor. Did they know what my sufferings were, those two persons, with their pale, puzzled faces and cold words? I felt myself growing angry.
“Answer me!” I cried. “Who wrote you that letter?”
Still neither the man nor the woman spoke. Their silence maddened me. I forgot my promise to the man at Naselton Hall. I forgot everything except my desire to sting them out of that merciless, unsympathetic silence. So I cried out to them—